hj Loc: Florida

Can anyone advise if the Apple Mac computer fusion drives are reliable. Seems like a long way back I heard there were problems. I understand they are a hybrid with SDD and HDD components. Are they noticeably faster? Thanks for info regarding your experience.

thofern

I’ve had an iMac for several years with a fusion drive. It’s performed well and I’ve had no problems with it. The way it works is that most-used processes and programs are shifted to the SSD to take advantage of its much faster operation. That being said, the price of solid state drives have come down to the point that the spinning drive can be eliminated entirely. I believe that Apple is phasing out fusion drives in favor of all SSD.

Woodworm65 Loc: Lombard, IL

Go with SSD faster and more reliable than the fusion.

hj Loc: Florida

Who can afford a large SSD drive?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Well, since they’re now down to ~$100/TB and the capacity is doubling for the same price every 12-18 months, almost everyone except users with many TBs of storage, and even that will be cost effective soon at the current rate of decline in $/TB. Consumer HDs have had a great run over the last four decades (yes, I know there were HDs before that) with capacities increasing from 10MB to >10TB and the price/GB steadily falling, but the end is in sight, if not quite here yet.

happy sailor Loc: Ontario, Canada

Personally having two at my house, I can anecdotally say that I don't like them. The 2 TB one that had the larger ssd portion but still too small was unreliable and replaced by Apple twice. When it started to go again I had a shop remove it and replace it with a 1TB SSD. It has given my 27" iMac 2015 a new lease on life, runs very well does what I need it to do.

The second one is on our other 27" iMac with a 1TB fusion drive, it has a tiny ssd drive and bottlenecks like crazy and runs terribly slow for most applications, it has not failed but it is slow. I will be having it replaced with a 1TB SSD this spring and that should make that machine good for a couple of years as well. Cost to replace with a shop doing the work is around $500 Canadian but much less than a new iMac.

On top of that and I have always said that I like Apples because they use high quality parts the HDD portion of the 2TB fusion drive was a Seagate Barracuda (a drive that has a horrible failure reputation).

My advice for myself and for anyone that wants to listen to me is do not buy a computer with a fusion drive.

hj Loc: Florida

Apple wants $400 more to go from 1TB HDD to same size 1TB SSD.

thofern

When you purchase a computer from Apple, upgrades to storage and memory are overpriced. I've always purchased the minimum memory and upgraded through third-party suppliers. Unfortunately, Apple has made it impossible to add memory to many of its current computers. Adding aftermarket storage was always trickier unless you wanted to use external drives.

You might consider just getting the minimum HDD setup from Apple and adding an external SSD drive from an aftermarket vendor. That works fine on a desktop machine but would be a hassle for a laptop.

Unless you need a new Mac right away, you may want to wait a bit. Apple is moving to new machines that use new M1 chips. So far only limited choices are available but they have received very positive reviews. M1 Macs certainly seem to be the future for Apple. I'd be hesitant to invest in any Apple Intel-based machine unless I just couldn't wait.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

My 2012 Mini has the 1TB Fusion drive and has been completely reliable (pounding furiously on wooden desk). I seem to be getting the rainbow pinwheel more these days, but perhaps it's because I never shut the thing off. At the time I don't think they offered a 1TB solid state option, and if they did it would have been 2-3x the price/TB of an off the shelf SSD drive, so I probably wouldn't have taken it in any case.

I would consider upgrading my Mini to a single 1 or 2TB SSD drive, but I thought I read where the OS was modified on these things when they came with a Fusion drive, to require the split drive for proper operation, making replacement with a single drive infeasible. It sounds like that wasn't the case, or at least isn't any more. For those who have replaced a Fusion drive, were there any OS or other system modifications that had to be made to get things working with a single drive?

billmck Loc: Central KY

I've had an iMac with the Fusion drive for about three years. No issues so far, but I can't tell that it's all that much faster.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

And that is the problem with Apple and the last remaining “closed system” in the industry. The fair market price for a 1TB SSD is just over $100, and if it were a PC, you could buy it for that and physically install it in 5 minutes, but if you choose Apple, then that is the cost...